Spherical Tie Rod Ends (from other cars to ours, what fits?)

Fri Feb 05, 2010 5:43 pm

I did some research into aftermarket tie rod ends (either to correct bump steer and/or to replace stock one with spherical ones)...

There is actually nothing in the market that is made specifically for our cars.So the options we are looking at are:1) Make your own (see Marteen / gtfour77 -- http://alltrac.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=23820 (putting stock on on the "under" the steering knuckle)) -- or you can source the sleeve and spherical joint ends, etc. from Pegasus Racing or McCaster Carr and roll your own if you have the time/motivation.2) Find tie rod ends made for another car and see if they will fit ours.

So, let's look at option 2... There was a thread that etantshi started that explored what other cars might have similar tie rod ends ( http://alltrac.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29000 ) and it was thought that Nissan S13/S14 and Toyota AE86 ones might fit...

I thought to myself, maybe SW20 MR2 ones might fit too? Supposedly I wasn't the only one to think that (Ted asked it a few years ago: viewtopic.php?t=19811 )

So it was time to do some researching...Looking up replacement part numbers and specifications, I was able to come up with some specs for all the cars in question. First, we start with specs for the ST185 and ST165 (same part # for both):

AE86 CorollaMoog Part #ES2382Bingo! Sure enough, same replacement part # as the ST185 (and AE82)!

So aftermarket possibilities:(1) Techno Toy Tuning$240 for a pair, but these come with AE86 steering knuckle replacement (which is useless to us, they convert manual steering knuckles to power steering knuckles for AE86s)-- maybe we can convince them to sell us just the tie rod ends without those steering knuckles and lower the price to what the SW20 MR2 ones sell for ($130).http://www.technotoytuning.com/productdetail.php?p=739